It was warm and still, almost unnaturally serene. The club music was gone, the air empty of chattering crowds.

My thoughts felt like incomplete jigsaw pieces. The last thing I remembered was a big black shiny SUV had screeched to a stop, and then the mesh inner lining of Anya’s duffel was gobbling me up until everything went dark. But then some other stuff had happened…And it had been important…

…A big SUV…then everything went black...

Then what?

The last thing I remembered was…an SUV…and then black…

A seat creaked.

On one side of the bed, Jennifer lounged back in a chair, her legs stretched out long in front. She was back in her usual clothes but still had the Firebird makeup on. She didn’t see me at first and I squinted at her uncertainly. She looked odd, like she’d dropped into the chair, a puppet with its strings cut, and was now trying to straighten –or stiffen – and coax posture into her body. The green fires of her eyes were dampened, and she looked more dazed and confused than I felt.

Sighing deeply and stretching her neck, she then noticed me looking at her, and looked back at me, not coldly, but without smiling. She seemed to be waiting for me to break the silence first, as if too shy to do it herself.

The hairs on my neck prickled with alarm. Something was wrong. I tried to remember if I’d done something to upset her…a big SUV…everything black…damn it. Was she still upset over Anya? But she didn’t look upset. She looked afraid.

It started to come back in vivid snapshots: rolling up to the after party, splashing around the pool, finding Samantha on the balcony, going into Paradise, getting summoned by Jen.

I started, already out of breath:

“I had this crazy –you’re going to laugh – I thought it would be really awesome if—”

She shook her head to shush me, and looked away, twisting one long lock of hair growing from her sideburn (what I called the ‘whisker strands’) around her finger and tugging – a nervous habit of hers.

“DON’T DO THIS, OKAY,” she said in a quiet, disconnected voice.

She sounded quietly devastated. Her voice had a soft, dry rasp like she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She swallowed and cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry,” I emphasized, even though one look at her face made my insides go to jelly. “I should have told you what was up. Yeah, I’ve done some dumb, dangerous things, but I’m still trying to negotiate being with you and having a normal life at the same time. I’m trying my hardest to have both. But I want to be good for you most of all. So please just give me another chance, if I just—”

“JERRY, STOP.”

The seat squeaked again as she folded one leg over the other and leaned forward, resting her upper body on her thighs and staring into her lap as she took a steadying breath. Then she turned her head, giving me a small wan smile.

“LISTEN TO ME. THERE IS SO MUCH THAT I … GOD—” the small smile slipped, her voice fluttered and her eyes helplessly flickered up at the ceiling, as if to avoid looking at me, “—WHY CAN’T I EVEN SPEAK RIGHT NOW?”

The air didn’t feel still and serene anymore. It was slowly being sucked out of my lungs, trickling away.

“What’s wrong?”

 She uncrossed her leg again, turning in her seat to face me properly, but her voice wasn’t coming out.

“EXCUSE ME, MISS TOMLIN,” came a kind male voice.

We both looked. A young male doctor entered the room and stopped by my bed. “IT’S ALMOST TIME,” he explained. “THE OPERATING ROOM IS BEING PREPARED FOR JERRY. A PHYSICIAN IS JUST COMING UP TO GIVE HIM A HINT OF GAS, AND THEN WE’LL—”

Then he noticed I was awake.

"—BEGIN…WELL, HOWDY DO, THERE, MR MOUSSEAU," he said gently. "WE’VE HAD A COMPREHENSIVE TALK WITH YOUR FIANCEE AND SINCE YOU WERE UNCONSCIOUS AND SHE’S CONSENTED FOR YOU TO HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT PROCEDURE.”

“What kind of procedure?” I asked warily. Voices were too hushed and postures too still and rehearsed. “What’s happening?”

The doctor lowered himself beside the bed to get closer to my eye level, though even in a crouch he was heads taller.

“YOU’VE DEVELOPED A SERIOUS SIDE-EFFECT AS A RESULT OF THE ROBURFORTIS YOU’VE BEEN TAKING. IT’S CALLED CARDIAC THROMBOSIS, AND MEANS BLOOD CLOTS HAVE BUILT UP IN YOUR HEART. IT’S NEVER COME UP IN THE TRIALS ON NORMAL SIZE SUBJECTS, BUT THE MEDICATION HAS HAD AN UNPREDICTABLE ADVERSE EFFECT ON YOUR MINIATURE SYSTEM.”

I heard ‘blood clot’ and ‘heart’ and began to feel panicked.

“Am I okay?”

“YOU'RE SCHEDULED FOR IMMEDIATE SURGERY,” the doctor said, not answering my question. “WE’RE GOING TO OPEN YOU UP, AND CUT THE CLOTS OUT. IT'S GOING TO BE INCREDIBLY SMALL SCALE AND WE’LL BE CUTTING IT INCREDIBLY FINE, AND SO THERE IS A SIZEABLE CHANCE THAT ONE OF THESE CLOTS RUPTURES, AND YOU MAY LOSE A LOT OF BLOOD , AND IF THAT HAPPENS YOU MIGHT NOT RECOVER FROM IT.”

Despite my size, the room felt too small, and continuing to shrink in on me.

“That’s worst case scenario, though, right?” I dismissed. “What’s the actual expected outcome?”

“THE CHANCE OF A CATASTOPHIC RUPTURE IS ABOUT SIXTY-NINE PERCENT LIKELY."

I lay my head back, stunned.

“That can’t be it,” I prattled, “Are you sure?” I eyed him with terrible hope. “You mean my chance of survival is worse than a coin flip?”

He patted the bump under the sheet that was my foot with a big stubby fingertip.

“AN EXPERIENCED TEAM OF SURGEONS IS GOING TO BE WORKING ON YOU TONIGHT, AND WE’RE GOING TO GIVE THIS THE BEST SHOT WE CAN, I PROMISE YOU THAT.”

Tonight? There had to be a mistake. Tonight? All I get is tonight, and then wham, nothing?

Sure enough, the muted TV screen displayed the time: it was nearly eight-thirty. The after party must have been yesterday. Now today was coming to an end as well, and much faster for me of anyone.

An orderly entered the room, the doctor rose, and the bed began to tremble as they both worked to get the bed moving. Jen jumped up and gripped the side rail, fixing herself to the bedside.

I rustled around on the bed, trying to keep my balance through every minor tremor and bump as the bed rolled out of the room.

“I just woke up!” I said. “Can I have a moment with my fiancée to process this?”

“THE CLOTS ARE INCREDIBLY VOLATILE,” the doctor explained as the room’s walls passed by, and changed to the outside corridor. “ONE OF THEM COULD RUPTURE SPONTANOUSLY, OR MIGRATE TO ANOTHER PART OF YOUR BODY AND CAUSE FATAL EMBOLISM.”

The bed conveyed me swiftly down the long white corridor, world was moving past on either side, lino floor trundling along. A doctor moved ahead of the bed, and beyond him, at the end of the long corridor were the twin operating room doors.

Jen was still at the rail, going wherever the bed went.

“I KNOW YOU’RE SCARED,” she insisted, like she was giving me a pep talk before a big sports game. “FOCUS ON THE SOUND OF MY VOICE.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, wanting to kick myself for ever taking the medication. “I fucked up.”

“YOU’RE GOING TO BE OKAY.” Her voice was slightly too insistent, as if daring me to disagree.

The bed was wheeled through doors, and then paused in a small room outside the operating room. There were tugging sensations as a doctor began cutting away at my ‘Beautiful Mistake’ t-shirt with a tiny, kink-tipped pair of medical shears. With the t-shirt stripped away, the cool air sent my flesh crawling.

Meanwhile, one of the doctors handed Jennifer some forms.

“WE’RE GOING TO TAKE AN X-RAY OF HIM BEFORE WE BEGIN. PLEASE READ THROUGH THIS AND SIGN HERE—”

While she read over the information, voices of passing surgeons blared in and out of my hearing.

Maybe something she read in the forms then distressed her because her breath started coming out in trembling and uneven waves. She signed the forms and they were briskly taken away again. Within a minute she’d composed herself again. Then she was speaking to me in a rapid tone, trying to get her words in before the doctors whisked me off into the operating room:

“WHEN YOU WAKE UP,” she said firmly, “I’M GOING TO BE RIGHT HERE WITH YOU.”

If I wake up, I thought.

She seemed to read what I was thinking on my face. Her lips sucked in tightly before she went on: “THEN YOU’RE COMING HOME WITH ME, AND YOU’RE GOING TO GET A NICE HOT DROP IN THE TUB,” she brushed a thumb over my shaved head, “WASH ALL THE ANYA OFF.”

I pulled at her thumb until it lowered, and placed a kiss on the velvety ripples of her thumbpad.

“I love you, Jennifer.”

She faltered.

“YOU’RE GOING TO PUSH THROUGH FOR ME – WE GOT THIS!”

A small team was converging on the bed again to send it up the last leg of the long corridor.

Her vast upper body dipped to push a big kiss on my face while the soft weight of her fingertip slipped into my hand. She said in a very small voice against my head:

“Love you too, baby.”

Then the bed surged forward and slammed through the operating room’s double doors.

The room was dim except for bright lights directly overhead, so like stadium strobes, but the blue-gowned audience was deathly quiet, their eyes drawn and, and their expressions were hidden behind surgical masks.

A plastic mask was secured over my face, surprisingly small enough to fit. It wasn’t an actual surgical mask, but a piece of tubing cut into a cone shape, with the cone fitting around my jaw. A doctor’s humungous rubber gloved hand blocked my vision as it held the tubing to my mouth, while the vaporous sensation of rubber-scented gas began pouring into my lungs.

“JUST A SMALL COCKTAIL, JERRY,” a voice rumbled overhead, “AND THIS’LL BE ALL OVER IN A SNAP.”

‘Snap’ sounded painful, and final. But the gas was causing time to contract and expand. The walls started to waver like I was underwater. My eyes floated around the room, settling on the clock on the wall. The second hand jumped around. The numbers became too blurry to read. Then my brain was too blurry to think. Finally, everything went dark.

I fell through several confusing dreams.

In the final one, a giant cat leapt up onto the operating table, causing the table to depress with its weight, and began licking my face, over and over, with measured strokes of its scratchy tongue.

Then I was awake.

A machine droned to the side, and another captured and replayed my heartbeat in regular beeps. A piece of tubing was secured over my lower face with tiny straps, sending a fine vapor of anti-inflammation steroid into my lungs.

My body was still slack and leaden, with bandages wrapped protectively all around. Under the bandages I was naked, and remembered my clothes had been cut away, and the hospital had no gown small enough for me. My throat was stiff as a board, and there was a bottomless ache in my torso that wasn’t being totally covered up by the anesthesia.

The giant cat was still licking my face, or the part not covered by the tubing mask.

But there was no cat. It was actually a very large thumb stroking my eyelids repeatedly as if trying to gently coax them open. The scratchy-textured feeling returned, but this was a thumbnail, grazing through my scalp. Then more stroking of my eyelashes.

A soft rumble right at my head:

“YOU’VE GOT A LITTLE IODINE…UM…” It was Jen, and she didn’t sound certain if I was awake or not, “…LET ME TAKE CARE OF THAT.”

A soft cool sensation ran around my brow, bathing my face in fragrant antibacterial lotion. I relaxed, feeling like I was lying in a day spa, then I opened my eyes.

Her face was held so close to mine that it was everywhere. She lay on her front, taking up the bed’s length, with her arms folded right at my feet.

“JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW,” she said, “IF YOU WEREN’T PLUGGED INTO THAT VAPEMASTER, I WOULD BE SUCKING YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW.”

A couple of nurses entered, and Jen moved across the bed to allow them to check up on me and adjust the machines. One of them flashed a little light in my eyes and had to bring her face in very close to make out my pupils.

Jen asked them if the tubing mask was necessary now that I’d woken up. They agreed, removed it, and then left the room.

The vapors had been cool and silky and oxygenated, but now I had to use my lungs to draw breath and it hurt the incision site on my chest.

A pair of big plush lips rushed at my face, giving me the unique POV of a straw about to be drunk from, before smoothly replacing where the tubing had been with the seal of her mouth, while her tongue slipped under my jaw to hold my head still. The compression of her puckering lips created a pulling sensation in my lungs that made my chest hurt a little more.

I pushed at her chin and moaned.

“I need a break!”

She drew back, looking hurt.

Embarrassed, I avoided her eyes. I looked out the window to the side. It was raining. I hadn’t realized; Jen lay so close she bathed me in her body warmth.

The pain in my chest settled, and now I was more conscious; my vision had brightened and sharpened and suddenly appreciated how beautiful she was with her exotic Firebird makeup, baggy sweatpants and halter top showing a black sports bra underneath.

She lay down on her side, easing her head onto the pillow to avoid disturbing my body. If I turned my head to her, I got a direct view of her nose.

Suddenly, she let out a long sigh, catching me head on in a warm exhalation.

“I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WOULD DECIDE RIGHT NOW IS THE TIME TO HAVE THIS TALK.”

“What talk?” I replied.

“LOOK, I HAVE BEEN IN SOME HAIR-RAISING RELATIONSHIPS,” she rose onto her forearms again, “BUT I THOUGHT WE WERE BETTER THAN THAT. WHEN WE FALL, WE FALL ON OUR FEET.”

“If this is about me not contacting you, I had no phone.”

“THINGS AREN'T...PERFECT, OBVIOUSLY,” she went on, “BUT I LOVE YOU, AND I AM TRYING MY HARDEST, TOO.” She paused for breath. “YOU NEVER GAVE ME A CHANCE, JERRY; HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU WEREN’T HAPPY?”

“I am happy,” I countered, “I’m alive! You think I don’t want to be with you anymore?” Then I understood. “I don’t want a break from you, I just needed air.”

She propped up onto her elbow and gave me a probing look with piercing green eyes.

“HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN SEEING HER?” As she said this, her pointer finger softly dug into my throat and began to search around. When applied to my neck or chest, her fingerpads were basically an in-built lie detector system, finely attuned to changes in pulse rate.

“You mean Anya? It’s not me who is into her. It’s my driver, Raf.”

But I wondered if that would still be true after he found out what happened.

Jen frowned, squeezing my neck a little with the press of her fingertip.

“THEN TELL ME WHY YOU WENT ON TOUR WITH HER.”

“I was trying to network with her as a favor for Raf.” I stared hard at the bedsheet. “But…she took me and wouldn’t let me leave.”

She ran a hand over the top of her head as she considered this, pulling her hair tight. Then let go of her hair and shook her head:

“WELL, NO MORE FAVORS FOR RAF. HE FAILED HIS ONE JOB, AND I FIRED HIM.”

“What?” I looked back up at her. She was serious. “Hey, I like Raf!”

“ISN’T THIS THE GUY WHO THREW YOU UP ON THE METAL SCAFFOLDING AT GALAXY?” Her brows pinched together dangerously, “—AND THEN LIED TO ME ABOUT IT?”

“What did he say?”

“THAT THE BOUNCER TOOK YOU OUT TO PEE IN THE ALLEY,” she scoffed.

I dwelled on this for a second.

“You’re right, I need a new gofer.”

“JERRY…” she said plaintively, propping her head up in her hands, and massaged her brow, “…COME HOME. YOU’RE SICK BABE.” She stroked the tip of her nose into the side of my head. “LET ME FIX YOU UP…ALL OVER.”

I kissed the tip of her nose. She smiled and then her broad tongue rolled up my face, leaving a sticky trail.

“SORRY,” she giggled. “REFLEX.”